A catheter is a tube that can be inserted into a body cavity, duct, or vessel. Catheters thereby allow drainage, injection of fluids, or access by surgical instruments. The process of inserting a catheter is catheterization. In most uses, a catheter is a thin, flexible tube (“soft” catheter), though in some uses, it is a larger, solid (“hard”) catheter. A catheter left inside the body, either temporarily or permanently, may be referred to as an indwelling catheter. A permanently inserted catheter may be referred to as a Permcath®, for example.
The ancient Syrians created catheters from reeds. “Katheter—καθετηρ” originally referred to an instrument that was inserted such as a plug. The word “katheter” in turn came from “kathiemai—ηαθιεμαι” meaning “to sit”. The ancient Greeks inserted a hollow metal tube through the urethra into the bladder to empty it and the tube came to be known as a “katheter”.
Heretofore various balloon type catheters and perfusion catheters have been proposed for performing one or two procedures. However, heretofore, prior to the present invention a multi-purpose balloon catheter capable of performing two or more procedures has not been available.
The incidence of esophageal and stomach cancers continue to increase globally. Often patients die without proper diagnosis and/or treatment. For localized cancers, tumors can be first shrunk with the help of high dose rate brachytherapy employing appropriate applicators. This can be followed by surgical, chemotherapeutic and/or biological agents or mediated targeted therapeutic procedures. Positioning and targeting of radiation to the site of disease with minimal or no damage to normal nearby organs remains a challenge. Thus, the need exists to have a catheter that can not only provide multiple functions but also can be selectively positioned and targeted for delivering the radiation or other suitable treatment modalities and other applications such as rectal, bladder, colon, uteral, cervical and breast cancers. The catheters of the present invention can address that need as well as can promote minimizing risk of causing damage to surrounding tissue or can promote reducing pain during a treatment procedure.
Thus, a multi-purpose balloon catheter for intra cavity radiation delivery addressing the aforementioned problems is desired.